Guardian Unlimited -
1 days and 20 hours ago
divimg alt=""
src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/95329?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Majority+of+China+earthquake+victims+still+unidentifiedch=World+newsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=China+earthquake+2008%2CChina+%28News%29%2CNatural+disasters+and+extreme+weather+%28News%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CCharitiesc6=Tania+Braniganc7=2008_11_21c8=1121958c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=China+earthquakec13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FChina+earthquake"
width="1" height="1" //divpSix months after the a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/chinaearthquake"Sichuan earthquake/a, only around a quarter
of the 70,000 victims have been identified, a Chinese official said today./ppThe details emerged as
leaders of the south-western province warned that survivors faced a grim winter, with some living
in tents with little insulation and struggling to find sufficient food and warm clothing. The
7.9-magnitude shock left almost 4 million people homeless./ppTemperatures can fall to well below
freezing in the mountains and Wei Hong, the executive vice-governor of Sichuan, said experts
predicted they would be up to one degree Celsius colder than usual this year./pp"Some senior
citizens and children are in need of basic equipment to keep them warm," he said. "People in some
quake-stricken areas even face the tough problem of provisions for this winter and the coming
spring."/ppWei said that a staggering amount of work was still needed, and that the region would
need 3 trillion yuan by 2010./ppBy the middle of this month, almost 200,000 homes had been rebuilt
and 685,000 homes were under reconstruction. But another 1.94m households still needed to be
rebuilt or repaired and sites were still being selected for 25 townships which needed to be
relocated./ppAsked how many students had died in schools that collapsed in the quake, Wei said
19,065./ppHowever, Li Jiang, from the Sichuan provincial propaganda office, later said that figure
referred to the total number of bodies identified, blaming mistranslation by an official
interpreter./ppThe deaths of thousands of children in collapsed schools became a highly sensitive
issue for the authorities after outrage spread through China about shoddy building standards.
/ppReports have been banished from the media and parents who sought investigations or tried to sue
local authorities have been harassed./ppSoldiers took photographs and hair and blood samples before
burying victims in mass graves in the hope that DNA testing might identify bodies in the future.
/ppBut given the devastation wrought by the earthquake, some bodies may never be recovered. In some
cases, there may be few relatives left to identify victims./ppOn top of the 70,000 confirmed dead,
18,000 people are still listed as missing./pp"Most of our cadres and people have overcome the
shadow of the earthquake," Wei said. "They are working hard to rebuild their homes and most have
found balance in their lives."/ppAsked about the suicide of two officials in the quakezone in as
many months, he said: "We recognise that the earthquake has still left some deeply damaged in their
hearts. We are very sympathetic about the suicides, but the reason for the suicides is not just the
trauma but other causes too."/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom:
10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/chinaearthquake"China earthquake/a/lilia
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/china"China/a/lilia
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/naturaldisasters"Natural disasters and extreme
weather/a/li/ul/divdiv class="guRssAdvert"a
href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yessite=Newscountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227280796907112115200444823"img
src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yessite=Newscountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227280796907112115200444823"
border="0" //a/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media
Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a
href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a

|